The former Orange High School student is among 57 new recruits with the Army Reserve’s 42 Platoon Echo Company 1st Recruit Training Battalion.

He is stationed at the Army Recruit Training Centre Kapooka, near Wagga Wagga, and is mid-way through his five-week training course.

“I was looking for something to do and I didn’t want to go straight to uni,” Mr Petersen said of his decision to join up with the Army Reserves.

He said the course was “challenging but doable”, especially the intensity and rush of each day’s activities.

Mr Petersen admits, however, that he was not missing his mobile phone as much as he thought he would.

“You only get it for an hour a week. There’s no TVs, we’re in a bit of a bubble,” he said.

Next year, he is considering studying teaching or architecture at university, but admitted full-time Army was “always an option”.